Appellate Court Upholds Fraud Finding Against Monastery

HARTFORD — The state Appellate Court has affirmed a jury's verdict that a self-proclaimed Benedictine monastery in Ashford defrauded a woman who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars for the construction of a chapel.

A Superior Court jury in 2013 found that Our Lady of Mount Caritas had fraudulently misrepresented that it was a recognized Roman Catholic institution. The jury awarded more than $200,000 to a woman who had donated to the monastery before a falling out with the monastery's leader, Mother Mary Peter, who is also known as Dorothy Jordan. Punitive damages added more than $70,000.

The monastery sought to overturn the punitive damages award, but was rebuffed by the Appellate Court.

"The record in this case is replete with evidence of the defendant's portrayal of itself as a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery," the court wrote in a decision released this month. "The record is likewise laden with evidence that Jordan knew that the defendant was not, in fact, a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery."

The jury could reasonably have found, the Appellate Court wrote, that those misrepresentations were sufficiently egregious to warrant punitive damages under the law.

"The evidence amply supported a finding that the defendant intentionally misrepresented its status to induce the plaintiffs to fund the construction of the chapel, and that, in so doing, it displayed a reckless indifference to the rights of the plaintiffs," the court wrote.

Our Lady of Mount Caritas — and Jordan — have a long and contentious relationship with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich. Mount Caritas was founded in 1979, when then-Bishop Daniel P. Reilly issued a "Decree of Establishment of the Community of Mount Caritas as a Pious Union." If the pious union, then consisting of Jordan and one other woman, were to grow, "we shall then consider canonical erection or a more permanent union," the decree stated.

Mount Caritas never received permanent canonical approval, and current diocesan officials maintain that Jordan and another woman who lives at Mount Caritas are not nuns and that Mount Caritas is nothing more than a private home occupied by religiously minded women. But for decades, Jordan, now 84, has consistently held that Mount Caritas is a legitimate Benedictine monastery, operating under the authority of Bishop Reilly's original 1979 order.

That is what a woman named Janet Wagner believed when she sought in 2008 to join Mount Caritas as an oblate — a lay person committed to a religious order. Wagner began volunteering at Mount Caritas, and eventually offered to provide $200,000 for the construction of a chapel and a guest house, with the understanding that Wagner and her husband could live there until they died.

In 2011, Wagner received a letter from Norwich Bishop Daniel Cote indicating that Mount Caritas was not a Benedictine monastery and had no permission to build a Roman Catholic chapel. But Wagner testified that Jordan assured her that the letter was false and simply represented the diocese's continued persecution of Jordan and Mount Caritas due to religious differences. The relationship between Wagner and Jordan deteriorated, however, and Wagner filed suit in 2012, seeking the return of her money.

Wagner has a judgment lien against the 35-acre property that Mount Caritas owns in rural Ashford, which the town appraised last year at more than $760,000. If the monastery does not challenge the Appellate Court ruling by the July 6 deadline, Wagner's attorney, Jeremy Donnelly of Butler, Norris & Gold in Hartford, said that he will begin foreclosure action against the property if the judgment is not paid.

Mount Caritas' lawyer, Edward Muska, who also serves as a director of the organization, did not return a telephone message seeking comment.